What would happen if I ate food while on the lemonade diet?

Question

If you know anything about the lemonade diet, do you know if it would still have good results if I ate on it? Would I be gaining too much nutrients? I'm a little hesitant about doing it without solid foods. It even says in the book it can be deadly if you fast and go back to eating solid foods (it has to be a slow progression). I just don't want to risk doing anything I'm not sure about.

Answer 1

The lemonade diet, aka the Master Cleanse diet, is a dangerous fad diet that isn't sensible at all.  Think about this for a minute- a drink that contains lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and water, and that's supposed to be HEALTHY??  Oh, and lets not forget to add in that luscious sounding herbal laxative and salt water sip.  Yum.  Yeah, you lose weight, because you are taking in something like just over 600 calories.   The maple syrup provides you enough sugar to help most people not pass out from the low blood sugar, but not all.  And if the laxative doesn't dehydrate you, you'll do well.  Okay, lets get some straight facts.  Your innards don't need to be cleaned.  The colon is a self cleaning set up, providing you eat real food and a half decent diet.  You don't have pockets of toxin laded waste hanging around, unless you happen to have diverticulitis, that is.  In which case, diarrhea would be the last thing you'd want.  And leaching toxins out of the body isn't something you pull off that easily.  The body isn't designed to give up things it's absorbed that easily.  Removing heavy metals and other nasty things like pesiticide residues requires chelation therapy.  That's done in a hospital setting, using IV chemical - much like chemotherapy.  It's dangerous even then, when it's done by doctors who know exactly what they are doing.  Aside from that, there isn't anything you can take by mouth that will leach things from the body.  If it were strong enough to do that, do you think you'd be likely able to drink it in the first place?  No.  This "diet" lacks protein, nutrients, and the necessary calories just for routine daily life.  And while you are draining it all from the stores of your body, you will be flushing it down the drain and not replacing any of it.  But what you will lose are the proteins from your muscles, the vitamins you had stored up, and the calcium from your bones.  The longer you stick with it, the worse the loss will be.  Depending on how long you stick to it before you break down and eat, yes- it can drop you in your tracks.  We get folks in the ER after about a week- dehydrated and seriously ill.  We get others in with vomiting that won't stop, with kidneys that are screaming from the proteinuria, all because they broke down and ate.  So no, I don't recommend doing this at all.  Listen to your little voice, the one screaming at you that this is not sensible, and won't be healthy for you.  That little voice is telling you something you really, really need to listen to.

Answer 2

You have people who swear by this and others who are naysayers. What it was meant for was a cleanse not a diet, but that it what people are using it for. I did it and my blood pressure came down and it was tough at first, but i made it. I will tell you that you should never do anything like this without the supervision of a doctor. There are doctors who are for fasts and cleanses and they don't have to be a naturopath either. When I was done I felt like a new person.

If you want you could eat fruits and vegetables raw, drink fresh squeezed juice and perhaps don't eat any meat or any other type of sugar. That maybe better than going full blast with this.

Answer 3

Sounds like the lemonade diet itself is a risk...

Answer 4

This diet will give you horrendous diarrhea!  Don't do it!